REX TILLERSON DID CORRECTLY CALL THE PRESIDENT AS HE SAW HIM

 DO NOT RECOMMEND CAMPING IN THE NORTHERN UNITED STATES

 

…This picture of the grizzly bear that killed a camper was taken by a remote camera.

 

The “non-reactive” bears in Yosemite are very different from those bears that aren’t used to seeing people.

 

Some years ago, a friend and I decided to head to Yosemite on a hot Summer day.  We took our sleeping bags, etc. and found a campsite in one of Yosemite valley’s camping areas.

My fiend was very afraid of bears, while I had some good experiences of dealing with the local Yosemite brown bears.  The bears of the Sierras’ tend to mostly be brown bears that are not as assertive as blacks or  grizzly’s.  I had, more than once had various good experiences with the brown bears.

As it turns out, we had arrived right when the sun was going down and we picked out a spot to lay out our sleeping bags. It was so warm, we didn’t need to set up a tent.  As It then turned out, we didn't know that we had chosen the path that the bears take to get to the camp's garbage dumpster and I woke up as one was headed to the dumpster.  Fortunately, my friend slept through the whole thing. 

When I told him the next morning, he turned white a sheet and he was very glad I didn’t wake him up.  He said he would have gone crazy.

The bears at Yosemite are very used to people and they seem to be “non-reactive” and I have been there multiple times when the bears show up, and I had never been a problem with the bears and the visitors.  Most seem to tolerate humans, regardless of how the people act 

However, that’s not the case with grizzly bears.

The main home for grizzly bear’s has been more north of California in areas such as the state of Montana. 

Last year, a 65 year old woman cyclist had been riding with her sister and their friend in the Tour Divide.  The Tour Divide is an annual bike ride along the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, which is a roughly 2,700-mile trek that starts in Alberta, Canada, and ends at the U.S.-Mexico border in Antelope Wells, N.M.

The woman, Leah Lokan, on July 6, 2021, awoke to a 417-pound grizzly bear a few feet from her tent.  The bear was so close that she heard when the bear “huffed” near her head.

“Bear! Bear!” Ms. Lokan yelled, prompting Joe and Kim Cole, two other cyclists also camping in the small town of Ovando as they trekked across Montana.  They sprung from their nearby tent, armed with bear spray and clamoring as much as possible.  This is according to a 26 page report by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee’s executive body.  The bear had then fled.

After scaring it off, Ms. Lokan, who was visiting from Chico, Calif., decided to move food out of her tent to a nearby building. She then armed herself with a can of bear spray. She had declined an offer to stay in a hotel for the night. She and the Coles returned to their respective tents.

But as expected, Lokan’s precautionary measures weren’t enough. The bear returned about an hour after the first encounter and he mauled her to death.

        …Leah Lohan’s camping site behind the Brand Bar Museum in Ovando, Mont.

A year later, wildlife officials said the bear that killed her had developed a “predatory instinct.” Although they couldn’t determine exactly how such an instinct evolved, food and toiletries inside and near Lokan’s tent, as well as the lingering smell of cooked food from the July 4th  picnic celebrations, played a role.

“While foraging under the cover of darkness in Ovando, perhaps due to a simple movement made by the sleeping victim, or a certain sound made by the victim, the bear reacted,” the committee’s board of review wrote in their report, which was discussed earlier during the executive body’s summer meeting. The 11-member review board included officials from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and the U.S. Forest Service.

Such predatory behavior is rare, even though many of the black and grizzly bears living in the contiguous United States exhibit a certain degree of habituation, officials said in the report. To survive, bears have to be “non-reactive” to people if they want to take advantage of “the rich low elevation habitats that are dominated by humans.”

And most do, despite becoming “mildly food-conditioned” by occasional encounters with unnatural food sources such as garbage bins, grains and bird feeders, the report said.

By July 2021, the bear that killed Lokan had gone beyond “non-reactive.”

Ovando, Mont, a town of fewer than 100 in the western part of the state, is a popular oasis along the ride. Thousands of cyclists stop in town during the summer to eat, camp for the night or stay in a hotel.

While Lokan’s sister and friend chose to hole up in a hotel the night of July 5, Lokan opted to camp behind the Brand Bar Museum with the Coles, whom they’d met during their travels. She set up her tent around 7 P.M. that night.

Around that time, the grizzly bear was about 4 miles to the west trying to break into a trailer, according to the committee’s report.

Eight hours later, the bear made its way into Lokan’s camp, huffing at her head and causing her to raise the alarm that would scare it back into the woods.

Lokan tried to make her camp more bear-safe, the report said. Although she moved her snacks and lentils out of the tent into a nearby building, the bags in which she kept her toiletries still smelled of the dried blueberries they’d once contained, investigators said.  Moreover, she still had food such as beef jerky, trail mix, granola bars, a baked potato in the saddle bags draped over her bike, which was about 10 feet from her tent.

Around 4:05 a.m., the Coles were awakened once again. But this time, it wasn’t Lokan’s shouting that roused them but the sound of the bear attacking her. Joe Cole unzipped their tent and roared in an effort to scare it off. His wife joined in by blowing a whistle. Emerging from the tent, the Coles saw the 417lb bear “pouncing up and down” on Lokan and her tent. Joe Cole advanced as he doused the bear with bear spray.

“The bear made eye contact with Joe, then averted its head as they approached closer, turned, and left,” the report states.

Although officials credited Joe Cole’s “aggressive response and action” with once again scaring off the bear, the damage was done. Emergency workers found “no obvious signs of life” while treating Lokan. 

Officials would later determine that her death was “instantaneous” after the bear broke her neck and severed her spinal cord. The medical examiner noted that she also had severe cuts to her head, neck, shoulders and back.

The grizzly eluded wildlife authorities for days as reports came in of a bear pillaging chicken coops, raiding garbage cans and killing deer. But just after midnight on July 9, agents with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services shot the bear five times, killing it. Subsequent DNA tests confirmed it was the bear that had attacked Lokan.

In their report, officials issued several recommendations for campers in the wake of Lokan’s death. They encouraged people to keep food or anything with a scent, such as toothpaste or lotion, far away from tents and to pitch tents at least 100 feet from where food has been cooked; and not to return if a bear comes near an occupied tent.

Investigators found a nearly empty can of bear spray inside Lokan’s tent and evidence she’d used it during the attack. In the report, officials said Lokan’s family had suggested that manufacturers add whistles to bear-spray cans that would sound when someone pulls the trigger. The noise would serve two purposes: to alert others of danger and further harass the bear.

I’m just glad that there are few grizzly’s in California, and I’m not going to be camping anywhere in Montana.

Copyright G. Ater 2022